


what's new pussycat

by hephaesticn



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Domesticity, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5320985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hephaesticn/pseuds/hephaesticn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where they adopt a kitten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's new pussycat

**Author's Note:**

> sorry @ the title

Simon comes home one day drenched from head to toe – his hair’s plastered all over his forehead; he looks like a drowned rat. His waterproof jacket’s draped over a cardboard box he’s holding in his arms, and Baz stalks over to him immediately, tries to grab the box, but Simon holds on tight.

Baz’s eyes narrow.

“Snow,” he says, slowly, carefully enunciating his words. “What’s in the box?”

“Don’t be mad,” Simon says quickly. Baz’s eyes narrow even further.

“Snow,” he begins, but Simon’s already pulling the jacket away with one hand, the box precariously balanced in the other.

“Open it,” he says, smiling. Baz looks at him, looks at the box in his arms, and then looks at him again.

“I swear to Merlin and Morgana _both_ , Snow, if this is your idea of some sort of practical joke—”

And then the words die out when he sees the tiny sleeping kitten, pure white except for its little brown paws, nestled in a corner of the box.

“Don’t be mad,” Simon says again. Baz tears his eyes away from the kitten to fix Simon with his best no-nonsense glare. It’s too bad Simon’s grown impervious to it by now.

“Explain,” he says instead, and Simon nods.

“Well, okay, I was on my way home from the shops when I found it, just _lying_ there on the pavement, and it was getting soaked through and I just – I couldn’t just _leave_ it there, I mean, what kind of sick fucks would just leave a helpless little kitten like that, so I—”

Baz turns around, walks back to the bedroom. When he comes back with a towel clutched in his hands the box has been discarded, and Simon has the kitten cradled in his arms. Baz’s heart lurches in his chest at the sight of Simon carefully rocking the kitten in his arms, and he tries his best to ignore it, shoves the towel at him roughly instead.

“Dry yourself off,” he says, voice clipped. “You’ll catch your death standing there like that.”

Simon lifts his head to look at Baz, blinking, but then the look in his eyes turns soft, and he leans in to kiss Baz on the corner of his mouth, an apology.

“Here,” he says when he pulls away, still smiling in that stupid, awful way that makes Baz feel like someone’s squeezing his heart in their hand. “Hold him for me.”

It takes a moment for Baz to realize what Simon’s referring to.

“You don’t even know if it’s a _he,_ ” Baz says, but takes the kitten into his arms anyway. Miraculously, it’s still fast asleep, its tiny chest rising and falling with each small breath.

Simon shrugs, throwing the towel over his head. “ _It_ just sounds wrong.”

Baz rolls his eyes. “Get changed, Snow,” he says, and Simon grins, showing teeth.

“Care to join me?” he says, and Baz glares at him before Simon’s walking away with the towel still thrown over his head like some sort of ridiculous shawl, laughing as he goes.

While he waits Baz settles himself on their sofa, shifting his arms until he finds a comfortable angle where he can hold the kitten still. He peers down at it – its fur is a little matted, its coat a little dirty, but otherwise it looks perfectly fine. _Adorable_ , even. Absently Baz reaches down to scratch at the top of the kitten’s head; it mewls, quietly, shifts in his arms but remains firmly asleep. Well, that’s one thing the kitten and Simon already have in common, Baz thinks, and the thought makes him smile, just the faintest tug of his lips as he looks down at the sleeping kitten in his arms.

There’s a sudden noise that makes him look up – Simon’s standing in front of the door to the bedroom, dry now except for his hair, looking sheepish. _Sorry_ , he mouths, and Baz ducks his head, pretends he hadn’t just been smiling stupidly a moment ago.

He’s still looking pointedly at the kitten when Simon settles down next to him on the sofa, bumping their shoulders together.

“Baz?” Simon says.

Baz turns to look at him. He’s grinning.

“You look really cute right now,” he says. Baz flips him the bird with his free hand, and Simon laughs delightedly.

“God,” he says, “how many Pitch family traditions have you desecrated with that one act?”

“Probably twenty-five,” Baz says absently. “Or twenty-six. One of them is rather open to interpretation.”

They fall silent after that, both watching the tiny sleeping kitten – it’s somehow managed to crawl into Baz’s lap at some point, though still completely asleep.

“We should talk about what to do with it,” Baz says finally. Simon nods.

“I want to keep him, of course.” Simon peers at Baz. “You don’t have any allergies do you? Wait, can vampires even have allergies?”

“ _Clearly_ , I don’t, considering how it’s rubbed itself all across my arm and I haven’t broken out into massive hives yet,” Baz responds, rolling his eyes again.

“Well, that’s good then.” Simon hums, kicks his heels against the back of the sofa. “Let’s see… we have plenty of space, if we clean up the study a little we can make space for a cat bed. I’ll ask the landlady, but I’m sure she won’t mind, if she does you can cast something on her—”

“I’m quite sure that’s illegal,” Baz says under his breath. Simon ignores him.

“—or I could just get her something to butter her up,” he continues without missing a beat. “And I’ll take care of all the manual labor because I’m pretty sure you’ll be violating another five hundred Pitch traditions if you so much as attempt to clean out a litter box.”

“Try five thousand,” Baz mutters. This time Simon laughs.

“We can get him some cat toys. And a scratching post.” His eyes light up. “Oh, and maybe a climbing tree—“

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Snow, we need to take it to the vet first,” Baz interrupts, lips curling in amusement. “Crowley knows what its previous owners have done with him.”

Simon nods again. “Yeah, okay. Okay. Let’s go now.”

It’s only later, when Baz is driving to the nearest vet, muttering curses at the traffic in London under his breath with Simon next to him and a now-awake kitten sitting quietly in his lap, that he realizes he never actually expressly _agreed_ to adopt the cat, but— Well, it doesn’t really matter now. And it’s not like he was ever going to say _no_ in the first place, anyway.

The kitten is given a clean bill of health by the vet. The kitten is also apparently a _she_.

“I told you,” Baz says. Snow just shakes his head.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “In any case, she needs a name.”

Baz considers this for a moment.

“I wanna name her Kitty,” Snow says. Baz looks at him.

“We are not naming a cat _Kitty_ ,” he says.

“Look, just because you probably want to name her _Cruella_ or _Drizella_ or _Maleficent_ or whatever the fuck traditional Pitch names there are—”

“Don’t insult my family,” Baz says automatically, even though he secretly thinks the traditional Pitch names are completely absurd too (as much as he loves his mother, she named him _Tyrannus,_ for fuck’s sake). “Also, to my knowledge none of my ancestors or relatives have those names, and _Cruella_?Seriously?”

“You’re just prissy because you don’t want to admit that Kitty is an awesome name,” Simon says.

“Kitty is a ridiculous name,” Baz huffs. “Even more ridiculous than _Cruella.”_

In the end Kitty ends up sticking anyway, because if he’s completely honest, Baz has never quite been able to say no to Simon.

And so they end up building a rhythm, and it goes a little bit like this:

Baz wakes up first thing in the morning the moment the sun so much as peeks into the sky, so it’s Simon who usually bears the full burden of having a hyperactive kitten crash land right into his face every single morning like clockwork. Baz likes to think that Simon’s already gotten used to it the first ten times he’s been woken up like that, but the truth is that every single morning Simon still bolts awake with a lump of fur in his mouth, and every single morning it still makes Baz laugh.

Then he goes to get breakfast for Kitty, leaving Simon spluttering behind him in the bedroom. Eventually Kitty comes running out to the kitchen for her food, and Baz will hear the sounds of Simon running a shower. He makes breakfast for the both of them, partially because he likes cooking and partially because the smoke damage from the last time Simon tried to make dinner is still there. Finally, Simon will drag himself into the kitchen with his wet hair dripping all over his shirt, and lean in to kiss Baz properly while Kitty rubs herself against their legs.

“Good morning,” Simon says, his voice still rough with sleep, and Baz smiles.

“Good morning, Snow,” he says back, and then kisses him again until Kitty’s mewling for attention.

Then Simon will pick Kitty up as well, scratch her on her head and coo at her, and Baz will stand and stare at the both of them, bathed in the early morning sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window, and he will think to himself, _I would give up every last bit of my magic, if it meant I could have this everyday for the rest of my life._


End file.
